In 2010, two brothers from Richmond, Virginia, frustrated at never-ending customer service wait times, launched an app designed to hold a customer’s place in line using a bot. LucyPhone caused a stir among clients and call centers, and although it’s no longer available, it foreshadowed today’s machine customers, which are threatening to revolutionize the CX industry.
Users tasked LucyPhone to take their place in a phone queue while they waited for a human representative. The app relied on customer service agents to prompt the bot to alert the caller that they’d reached the front of the line. Many agents, upon hearing a robotic voice, simply hung up. The Inland Revenue Service went further, instructing all its agents to terminate any calls from LucyPhone bots.
The app was the latest iteration of vendor relationship management (VRM), a term first coined in 2000 and popularized by blogger and journalist Doc Searls.
“Conceptually, we've been here for decades, this notion that consumers need a way to have a force multiplier on their side in the same way that brands use technology as a force multiplier,” Ian Jacobs, VP and Lead Analyst at Opus Research, tells CX Today.
However, that concept was never followed by a concerted technological movement, according to Jacobs, until the recent introduction of generative and agentic AI brought the idea closer to reality.
The Quickening Pace of Machine Customer Development
This year, several major companies have launched significant forays into machine customer technology. In January, Google unveiled an experimental new feature called “Ask for Me,” which enables users to task an AI agent to call businesses and make enquiries on their behalf. And in July, Walmart announced plans to introduce AI-powered “super agents,” intended to improve customer experience.
That trend is expected to continue. Gartner predicts that by 2030, 15-20% of revenue will come from machine customers.
“I expect that these capabilities will continue to advance quite rapidly over the next two to three years,” Daniel O’Sullivan, Senior Director Analyst at the Gartner Customer Service Practice, predicts. “Younger generations, millennials, and Gen Z, have told us that when it comes to, for example, trying to resolve a customer service issue, their preferred starting point is to use a generative AI channel of some kind.”
As more people delegate tasks to agentic AI, customer service providers will face the same choices agents encountered when LucyPhone appeared on the other end of their calls in 2010. Organizations may follow the IRS's example and refuse to interact with non-human customers.
Given the compliance, privacy, and legal issues that may arise, that would be the simplest solution, but O’Sullivan says they run the risk of falling behind competitors. “I think you're battling against the tide if you dig your heels in and say that's what you're going to do, because customers will do whatever they want,” he says, adding that customers will see this as a way to make everything “easier and more convenient.”
How Will Machine Customers Impact CX?
The rise of machine customers could significantly shift how organizations provide customer experiences. Call centers can expect an increase in the volume of incoming calls, as consumers use tools like Google’s Ask for Me to make enquiries they don’t have time to pursue. But more worryingly, the value of their calls may decrease sharply.
Human customers offer some very tangible advantages that have, until now, been taken for granted. In a conversation with a human, agents can reinforce relationships, upsell products and services, and receive valuable feedback.
“[Organizations] might wake up to a moment where they no longer really have a connection with their customers at all, and they don't necessarily even know what their customers want, and so then they're kind of flying blind, and their opportunities to upsell and drive revenue, retention and growth, become much more challenging,” O’Sullivan says.
